Juventus do not want Gonzalo Higuaín back under any circumstances — report

If it hasn’t been entirely obvious for the past year or so, Juventus are trying to get rid of Gonzalo Higuaín. It’s nothing personal, they just want his albatross of contract of their books (especially as they’re set to pay even more in wages to Aaron Ramsey coming in) while recouping some of the record transfer fee they paid for him.

At Chelsea, we call this the Malouda situation. Or perhaps a Drinkwater situation, for a more recent reference. Juventus signed Higuaín for €90m at age 28.5, and gave him a guaranteed five-year, little under €10m/year contract — easily the highest in the Serie A at the time, though since tripled(!) by Cristiano Ronaldo. Wages in Italy are usually reported as net (post-tax), so €10m in annual wages would translate to about €16.67m gross (at a tax rate of 40 per cent), or about £275k weekly as it would be reported in England.

It’s not easy to find a taker for those sorts of wages, which is where loans to AC Milan and Chelsea come into play. And while Chelsea do have the option to either extend Higuaín’s loan for next season (for €18m) or take up the buy-option for twice that amount, we’d be quite foolish to do either — even if Higuaín could technically be signed before any transfer ban comes into effect, though Chelsea’s appeal will likely push the start date to January 2017 instead.

But according to Corriere della Sera’s Torino edition (via the Mail), Juve will not want Higuaín back in any event, and if Chelsea don’t want him, they will look to move him on to some other chump organization.

Things might get interesting if Chelsea were to push for a potential discount (as rumored not too long ago), but Corriere claim that Juventus are standing firm on their valuation (for now at least). Higuaín has two goals in six Chelsea appearances so far, both coming against the worst team in the Premier League.